RTITB's software suppliers now pull in one direction

RTITB is the accrediting body for workplace transport training in the UK. Its daily work runs across software from several outside suppliers: a training records platform, an accreditation system, a help portal, a competition portal, a learning management system, plus HubSpot and Xero for sales and finance.

Each supplier looked after its own product. Nobody looked after the gaps between them. Requests from the business went to whichever partner seemed closest, written by people who knew the operational need but not the systems. Work came back late, over budget or not quite right, and the same data problem could be raised with three suppliers at once. Senior staff spent their time chasing, not deciding.

We took on the role of RTITB's technical lead across its software partners.

• One roadmap. We worked with department heads to gather every open request, grouped them by system and outcome, and turned them into a single prioritised development plan that leadership could see and approve.
• Clear briefs. Each piece of work now goes to a supplier as a written specification, with scope, acceptance criteria and a budget, before anything starts.
• Supplier coordination. We sit in the partner meetings, hold each supplier to its scope, and sequence work where one system depends on another, so changes land in the right order instead of colliding.
• Review and sign-off. We check what comes back against the brief before RTITB pays for it, and feed the result back into the plan.
• Systems and security oversight. We built a register of every system RTITB uses, who supplies it, who has access, and when it was last reviewed, with a regular check cycle.

Leadership sees one plan across all suppliers, with cost and priority, instead of a scattered list of tickets. Suppliers receive briefs they can quote and deliver against, and the back-and-forth on each request has dropped sharply. Department staff raise needs with one person who understands both the business and the systems. RTITB has a written record of every system it depends on and a scheduled review of each one. Supplier spend goes to the work only a supplier can do, with the gaps between systems now handled in-house.